By: Christ the King Law Center (CKLC)
Since President Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States on January 20, 2017 we have commented here on the good promises he has made during his campaign which we hope he will fulfill as President. We have offered a prayer to the President here and also offered Christopher Ferrara's commentary on President Trump's appointment to the Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch here. In this article we will comment on another important event that happened that day which was the end of Barack Obama's (BO's) term as President of the United States. The termination of BO's time as President was a major relief to many Catholics across the country. In his eight years as President BO had pushed an extreme liberal political program that went further than his predecessors. Whole books can be written on all of the destructive and evil policies of the Obama administration but in this article we will focus on one aspect of his political program. That aspect was the attempt to force some of the Church’s institutions to fund abortion and contraception. Such a policy should leave no doubt that Obama’s legacy includes that of a violator of the Church’s freedom.
The Obama administration sought to force Catholic hospitals and charities to provide contraception and abortion inducing drugs in their health insurance plans to their employees. In January 2012 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a mandate under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) that required all employer health plans to provide free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of any moral or religious objections. The ministries of institutions like Catholic schools, hospitals and charities-educating the young, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry-were not considered sufficiently religious to qualify for the mandate’s narrow “religious exemption.” The outrage against this mandate was so great that in February 2012 the Obama administration offered an “accommodation” whereby insurance providers, rather than employers, would pay for the services to which religious employers have moral objections. But this did not solve the problem because at the end of the day, the HHS mandate still forced all employers to provide health plans with free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs-or face fines. Numerous different organizations sued for relief from the mandate but the Obama administration continued to maintain the mandate with some other modifications that still did not satisfy the objections of Catholic organizations such as the Little Sisters of the Poor. For example, on August 27, 2014, the administration announced a new regulation that created a new way for religious organizations to sign control of their health plans over to the government. However, this would have made Catholic religious organizations like the Little Sisters of the Poor complicit in the distribution of immoral drugs when they signed away control of their health plans to the government. The Little Sisters of the Poor rightly objected to this fraudulent "exemption" and were able to win a victory at the Supreme Court where the Court ordered the Obama administration to not impose fines on the Little Sisters. [1]
Obama's attempt to force Catholic organizations to provide contraception and abortion inducing drugs in their health insurance plans can be rightly compared to another tyrant's attempt to crush the freedom of God's Church. That tyrant's name is King Henry VIII, the lecherous heretical madman who ruled England centuries ago but whose evil actions still impact us today. Fortunately under President Trump there appears to be some hope. In May 2017, President Trump issued an Executive Order directing HHS and other federal agencies to protect the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious ministries from the HHS mandate. This means that the agencies must fix their rules to exempt the Little Sisters and other religious groups from the HHS mandate. It also means that the agencies must end their unnecessary legal fights against the Little Sisters and other ministries in courts around the country. The President's Executive Order used the language of the liberal/progressivist error of religious liberty which as a matter of principle we at Christ the King Law Center (CKLC) reject since it is against the infallible magisterium of the Church. [2] The President's Executive Order makes no distinction in its intent to protect both the true and the false religion. Nevertheless as a matter of prudence this order is tolerable for the purpose of protecting the freedom of the Church. We pray for the day when, like Saint Constantine the Great, the President will acknowledge Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords and put the power of the United States government in the defense and service of Christ's Kingdom on Earth: the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church.
[1] See here: http://www.becketlaw.org/case/littlesisters/.
[2] See our article here.
Since President Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States on January 20, 2017 we have commented here on the good promises he has made during his campaign which we hope he will fulfill as President. We have offered a prayer to the President here and also offered Christopher Ferrara's commentary on President Trump's appointment to the Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch here. In this article we will comment on another important event that happened that day which was the end of Barack Obama's (BO's) term as President of the United States. The termination of BO's time as President was a major relief to many Catholics across the country. In his eight years as President BO had pushed an extreme liberal political program that went further than his predecessors. Whole books can be written on all of the destructive and evil policies of the Obama administration but in this article we will focus on one aspect of his political program. That aspect was the attempt to force some of the Church’s institutions to fund abortion and contraception. Such a policy should leave no doubt that Obama’s legacy includes that of a violator of the Church’s freedom.
The Obama administration sought to force Catholic hospitals and charities to provide contraception and abortion inducing drugs in their health insurance plans to their employees. In January 2012 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a mandate under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) that required all employer health plans to provide free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of any moral or religious objections. The ministries of institutions like Catholic schools, hospitals and charities-educating the young, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry-were not considered sufficiently religious to qualify for the mandate’s narrow “religious exemption.” The outrage against this mandate was so great that in February 2012 the Obama administration offered an “accommodation” whereby insurance providers, rather than employers, would pay for the services to which religious employers have moral objections. But this did not solve the problem because at the end of the day, the HHS mandate still forced all employers to provide health plans with free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs-or face fines. Numerous different organizations sued for relief from the mandate but the Obama administration continued to maintain the mandate with some other modifications that still did not satisfy the objections of Catholic organizations such as the Little Sisters of the Poor. For example, on August 27, 2014, the administration announced a new regulation that created a new way for religious organizations to sign control of their health plans over to the government. However, this would have made Catholic religious organizations like the Little Sisters of the Poor complicit in the distribution of immoral drugs when they signed away control of their health plans to the government. The Little Sisters of the Poor rightly objected to this fraudulent "exemption" and were able to win a victory at the Supreme Court where the Court ordered the Obama administration to not impose fines on the Little Sisters. [1]
Obama's attempt to force Catholic organizations to provide contraception and abortion inducing drugs in their health insurance plans can be rightly compared to another tyrant's attempt to crush the freedom of God's Church. That tyrant's name is King Henry VIII, the lecherous heretical madman who ruled England centuries ago but whose evil actions still impact us today. Fortunately under President Trump there appears to be some hope. In May 2017, President Trump issued an Executive Order directing HHS and other federal agencies to protect the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious ministries from the HHS mandate. This means that the agencies must fix their rules to exempt the Little Sisters and other religious groups from the HHS mandate. It also means that the agencies must end their unnecessary legal fights against the Little Sisters and other ministries in courts around the country. The President's Executive Order used the language of the liberal/progressivist error of religious liberty which as a matter of principle we at Christ the King Law Center (CKLC) reject since it is against the infallible magisterium of the Church. [2] The President's Executive Order makes no distinction in its intent to protect both the true and the false religion. Nevertheless as a matter of prudence this order is tolerable for the purpose of protecting the freedom of the Church. We pray for the day when, like Saint Constantine the Great, the President will acknowledge Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords and put the power of the United States government in the defense and service of Christ's Kingdom on Earth: the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church.
[1] See here: http://www.becketlaw.org/case/littlesisters/.
[2] See our article here.
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